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An Industry Man for the F.C.C.

President Obama has picked a former telecommunications lobbyist and campaign fund-raiser to serve as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, raising serious questions about his 2007 pledge that corporate lobbyists would not finance his campaign or run his administration.

When Mr. Obama announced the nomination of Tom Wheeler last week, he said Mr. Wheeler’s knowledge of the industry would help ensure that “we’re staying at the cutting-edge of an industry that again and again we’ve revolutionized here in America.” Some prominent former government officials have endorsed Mr. Wheeler and say he would make telecommunications more competitive.

There is no question that Mr. Wheeler, who was chief executive of the National Cable Television Association for five years and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association for 12 years before becoming a venture capitalist, understands the industry. The question is whether his long career representing the interests of telecommunications companies would make it hard for him to be an independent and fair regulator when consumers have few choices and pay high prices for cellphone, cable TV and broadband services.

He was also a big “bundler” for Mr. Obama in the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, which means that he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from relatives, friends and business associates. Political campaigns disclose their donors, but they are not required to disclose which of them were recruited by bundlers like Mr. Wheeler. Given his background, it is almost certain that he raised money from people whose companies he would regulate, creating potential conflicts of interest.

Mr. Wheeler’s supporters argue that he backed the modest net neutrality rules the F.C.C. adopted in 2010 to prevent Internet service providers from discriminating against content that competes with their own. (Verizon has challenged the regulation in court.) But he has also suggested that federal regulators should merely impose conditions on AT&T’s 2011 bid to buy T-Mobile, which, thankfully, was blocked by the Obama administration because it would have left only three national cellphone companies. Before Mr. Wheeler is confirmed by the Senate, he and Mr. Obama’s campaign should disclose how much money he raised from telecommunications executives and explain how he would make sure that those relationships would not influence his decisions at the F.C.C.

Among the agency’s tasks is improving wireless and broadband services, which are dominated by a handful of companies. How would he, for instance, use auctions of electromagnetic airwaves, which are currently controlled by TV broadcasters, to get new and smaller companies to provide innovative Internet and video services?

Surveys by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that a smaller proportion of Americans have high-speed Internet service at home and pay far more for it than consumers in nations like South Korea, France and Canada. Mr. Obama has said that he wants the United States to lead the world in telecommunications technology. The next chairman of the F.C.C. will need to have credibility and vision to carry that out.